The Tallahassee Community Redevelopment Agency is due to send out a request for proposals next week on how best to use $3 million in tourist development tax money set aside for arts funding. Already at least two groups are expected to vie for that money.

The cash is left over from a performing arts center project that lost its bid to get Blueprint funding five years ago and has been sitting in escrow, managed by the CRA on behalf of the city and county.

“The review committee has been working on the program documents which will be distributed to everyone next week, available on the web, etc.,” CRA Executive Director Roxanne Manning said in an email. She will give the CRA an update on Thursday.

The call for proposals will officially open Monday, she said.

“I am hoping that we will get several proposals,” Manning said. “We have all heard rumors of possible proposals but until they are submitted, we won’t actually know.”

The other $2.25 million from that account has been tapped for improvements related to the Cascades Park amphitheater.

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The nonprofit Tallahassee Performing Arts Collective is applying for a $3 million arts grant from the CRA to build a performing arts center at railroad square. This building, pictured Tuesday, is one of three that would be razed to make way for the proposed center.(Photo: Hali Tauxe/Democrat)

Since it’s tourist development tax money, proposals will have to meet certain local and statutory guidelines. One guideline is that the project must be within the CRA boundaries.

State law requires that tourist development tax revenue be spent on “convention centers, sports stadiums, sports arenas, coliseums, auditoriums, aquariums, or museums.”

One group led by local entrepreneur Dean Minardi is proposing a performing arts complex dubbed “The Collective at Railroad Square Art Park.”

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The LeMoyne Center for the Visual Arts, pictured Tuesday. The center is applying for a $3 million arts grant from the CRA. (Photo: Hali Tauxe/Democrat)

The newly formed Tallahassee Performing Arts Collective wants to raze three buildings— the Stereo Sales building, the wood and molding shop, and Athena’s Garden — to build a state-of-the-art 425-seat theater with two rehearsal spaces that will house resident performing arts companies, Minardi said.

“It’s going to be competitive,” he said. “You will have to apply and be juried to get in.”

They hope to raise over $4 million in private donations to match the CRA money and cover the estimated $7.375 million cost of the project, he said.

“We’ve already reached out to some donors,” Minardi said.

He’s vexed that the state capital of the third most populous state in the nation doesn’t have a performing arts venue.

“That said, it is inconceivable to me that this community won’t rally behind this project and raise a minimum $4 million for a state-of-the-art Performing Arts complex,” Minardi said.

The collective, which organized as a “living educational museum for the performing arts,” is envisioned as an arts accelerator, something that was part of the larger performing arts center proposed by the Florida Center for Performing Arts and Education, Minardi said.

"We are taking a razor knife and cutting a little piece out of that big project and make it a stand-alone facility and organization,” Minardi said.

He said the newly formed non-profit is teaming up with an established not-for-profit with 10 years of experience, but declined to disclose the name of the organization or other members involved in the project.

Terry Galloway, co-founder of the Mickee Faust Club academy for the dramatic arts, said she’s thrilled about the prospect of having another theater in Railroad Square where her theater is located.

“It is modest and not some big huge thing, and it is right where it should be, between FSU and FAMU,” Galloway said. “It’s answering a demand.”

The theater project would coincide with plans Railroad Square’s owners have for creating a gathering space called The Yard, said Lillian Finn, property manager for Railroad Square. They plan to repopulate the Proof Brewing Company space with another brewery, and put in a stage for musical acts in the empty space to the west of the brewery.

“This was always under-utilized space,” Finn said. “Our plan has always been to make this more of a community gathering type place, with a green area and a food hall.”

Giving them a run for their money will be the LeMoyne Center for the Visual Arts, a downtown nonprofit that has been around for 54 years.

"LeMoyne has been following the process with the CRA for four years now,” said Kelly Dozier, president of the LeMoyne board of directors and chair of the annual Chain of Arts Festival.

The gallery and education center wanted to be part of Cascades Park, but when that didn’t happen the board refocused on its downtown location, which covers less than an acre but includes an old mansion, several outbuildings and a former apartment building surrounding a sculpture garden.

“We want it to be a modern, vibrant center for the visual arts,” Dozier said.

Although it is a gallery, LeMoyne qualifies as a museum because of its extensive permanent collection of current and retired Florida State University art professors, she said. The gallery was started over 50 years ago as an outlet for those professors to create and sell their art.The LeMoyne is a major cultural resource for the community, she said.

The plan calls for tearing down the old, two-story apartment building that houses the arts education center and build a “modern, sustainable, flexible, efficient center for the visual arts,” Dozier said. “We want to bring vitality to downtown.”

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Kelly Dozier, the President of LeMoyne Center for the Visual Arts, left, and Facilities Committee Chair Mary Jo Spector discuss plans for a possible expansion to the center they hope to fund with the help of a $3 million arts grant from the CRA Tuesday.(Photo: Hali Tauxe/Democrat)

They’ve gathered some experts to help with the request, she said, and received a $50,000 grant from the Knight Center to create a master plan for the LeMoyne. The $3 million from the CRA would give them more than half the money they expect the project will cost, Dozier said.

They've also assembled a group of architects, civil engineers, landscape planners, surveyors and historic preservationists, said Mary Jo Spector, an FSU architect and chair of the facilities committee for the LeMoyne.

”We’re putting it all together and trying to keep up with the opportunities,” Spector said.

LeMoyne has already received several state and local grants, to do some restoration work, Spector said.

“We’ve been waiting for this grant solicitation to come out for the last six months,” she said. “Hopefully, we’ve positioned ourselves and we know we are eligible for this money and working on a plan.”

Plans for a 1,700-seat venue died in 2013, pulled from the slate of projects to be funded with an expansion of Blueprint 2000 sales tax money. Committee members feared voters would not approve the extension with a performing arts center attached, even after the project was scaled back from its original $114-million two-venue facility to a more modest $54 million venue.

Bob Inzer, president of the Florida Center for Performing Arts and Education, the nonprofit group behind the failed venue, said the board is still alive and functioning with the goal to bring a performing arts center to Tallahassee.

The money being put up for a performing arts project wouldn’t put a dent in what they programmed, he said, adding that the board has no position on the funds to date.

Meanwhile, the board still meets and is raising money for that day when Tallahassee is ready to support a modern, state-of-the-art performing arts center, he said.

Said Inzer: “It is not a question of if but when.”

Contact Schweers at jschweers@tallahassee.com. Follow him on Twitter @jeffschweers.